


You can't hide your pain

by cutebutpsyco



Series: Ironstrange prompts [17]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Magic, Magical Injury, Major Character Injury, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:13:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23910619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutebutpsyco/pseuds/cutebutpsyco
Summary: “Maybe you could start to work for me,” He was joking, and a part of him knew Stephen was aware of that, but another part, well, that part was already trying to find a way to involve Strange in his next project.“You can’t afford me,” Was everything Strange said, instead, opening the door of the infirmary room and waiting for Tony to precede him outside. Tony laughed at that, but a little something inside his heart fell even deeper for the other man.
Relationships: Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Series: Ironstrange prompts [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1193611
Comments: 6
Kudos: 95





	You can't hide your pain

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank so much the anon who gave me the motivation to write something for a super old prompt in my Tumblr inbox. 
> 
> An anon asked: _Tony is hurt and tries to hide it, only for Stephen to find out when Tony collapses from the pain._ which is basically all the plot this fic has, with a little reference to that line in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
> 
> As always, not betad and nothing belongs to me. Hope you'll like it =)

Tony grunted, biting his lower lips while trying to focus on Steve’s words. He couldn’t tell what he was speaking about and just had a vague idea about where they were having the debriefing, but it wasn’t like someone was expecting for him to speak. Everyone knew that Tony Stark hated that kind of thing, and considering that he was the man who paid for everything, there wasn’t a lot they could tell to make him change his behaviour. They didn’t care either, probably. 

But the truth was that he has never been so absent to the scene in front of him as he was in that moment and that was clear to everyone’s eyes. A soft hand went to his shoulder squeezing it for an instant and that was enough for him to turn and try to focus on the person in front of him. Natasha’s green eyes were stained with worry which he pretended to ignore. 

“Are you ok?” She asked, almost whispering. 

“Always,” It was a lie, and he suspected she knew it, but it wasn’t like it mattered any longer. He wasn’t really ok, taking the biggest tool in the battle they just fought. If only the kid didn’t decide to tag along with them he could have stayed focused on the actual thing instead of flying in front of Peter to protect him from the bad guy’s magic. And, as if Tony didn’t hate magic enough, he got caught in the crossfire between the villain of the week and the fucking Sorcerers (one fucking Sorcerer, the others had no fault and wong was funny to be around). The spell hit his side despite the armour, which didn’t have any dent or sign to indicate it had been touched in any way and burnt his skin if Friday’s reading was right. And her reading was always right, Tony programmed her. 

He hated the entire situation and hated the fact that Nat didn’t seem impressed at all by his lie, just raising an eyebrow and waiting for him to spill the truth. Tony wasn’t going to do that, but it was nice to see that she still understood him better than everyone else. 

“You know, it doesn’t have to be me but speaking with someone…” 

“If I’d ever spoken with someone, you are that person, Nat,” He whispered back, and the simple movement to turn and look at her amplified the pain. He tried not to think about it, focusing on the people who were around them and hoping that was enough for her to go back inspecting someone else. 

Tony probably knew that she would have asked for more explanation and was grateful when Steve asked her what she knew about rogue magicians loose on New York. He had no idea why Strange wasn’t the one who had to answer said question, but the Sorcerer seemed to be just as exhausted as Tony himself. 

“The only magical potential threats SHIELD knew about located in New York were at the Village,” She answered, her jade eyes now planted on the Wizard, that was good because Tony could lean against the back of his chair and close his eyes when a spike of pain went up to his side and chest. 

“What, you knew about us?” Wong asked, and if Tony closed his eyes and put all his attention in analyzing the tone the man was using, he could detect a bit of worry in his voice. The greatest and biggest emotion he has ever seen Wong display. 

Natasha nodded, then turned to look at Steve and then she said: “You, a TV anchor in Cairo, the undersecretary of defence, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who’s a threat to Hydra,” For a second everyone stilled to the point where Tony was sure it wasn’t a sentence he misheard because of the pain. “Do you remember?”

“Sitwell?” It wasn’t Steve who answered, but Sam who looked more like the winner of “Who wants to be a billionaire?” at that moment. Natasha nodded. 

“If those people were a threat to Hydra, maybe SHIELD should have kept an eye on them, I thought. I spoke with Fury and he agreed with me. Seven months later, Stephen Strange disappeared. Long story short, I found him, while I was looking for someone completely different,” She flashed a smile to Strange, one of her unreadable smiles. “I know that whoever was today, has nothing to do with your cult.”

“I could have told you that much,” Strange answered, but how the sentence continued went lost in Tony’s mind. His side was still burning and he was this close to get up and run somewhere else. A place where he could have easy access to painkillers and alcohol, to make an example. He tried to seal his wound up with nanotech, but the particles could do something just with stretches or the likes, not with whatever was threatening to tear a hole into his skin and flesh. 

For once, anyway, luck seemed to be by his side because after ten minutes or so into Strange’s monologue, Wong suggested that they could search for other information about the villain of the week in Kamar-Thing and Steve say they were done for the day. Tony was the first one to cross the doorstep and all but run for the elevator, hoping to be the faster one to reach it. He had no idea what he needed to make the pain stop but was sure that the company of the Avengers and Friends wasn’t the right answer. 

“Goin anywhere?” Again that fucking annoying, low voice. The point was, Tony knew far too well whom that voice belonged to. It was one of the men who went on and on speaking during the meeting, the voice of a man he just pretended to hate from the bottom of his heart because he represented everything Tony firmly rejected. Namely, magic.  
Except that he didn’t exactly hate not the voice or the man and what bothered him to death was the fact that a Doctor, a man of science, simply accepted the existence of magic without questioning it. 

His relationship with Strange was weird at best. Sure, they met at the end of the world and they bickered since the first moment because Tony dared to lean against the Magical Bown of Madness or whatever its name was, then the wizard got kidnapped along with his precious necklace, which was what Tony went after, not the annoying man who was guarding it, and after saving his life Strange had the guts to tell him he would have sacrificed both him and Peter to save the shining thing, but the point was… Tony understood him. It was the exact sentence that would have bothered everyone else to give Tony the first glimpse of the man behind the annoying self-moving cape. 

It was the end of the world, decisions, even hard ones, had to be made. And Tony respected that. He would have preferred if Strange wouldn’t have spoken about sacrificing the kid, but Tony knew he couldn’t ask that much. It was New York all over again, and Tony could understand that much. He respected that much. 

Tony didn’t expect for the man to do the exact opposite just half an hour later, and most certainly not what happened after he snapped his fingers, but it wasn’t like Tony knew everything of what Strange did (something about using the Time Stone to trap Thanos somewhen before the first Stone has been found). What he knew was that he owed the man his life and that they were starting to create a solid friendship mostly made of Tony complaining with Stephen about how unlucky was the fact that the judge who decided about Morgan’s custody was one of his old one-night stands. Strange laughed a lot the first time he heard that story, then tried to explain to him that usually, they prefer to give the children’s custody to their mothers unless those proved themselves to be incapable of raising the children. Tony still preferred Nat’s approach of blackmailing the judge. 

The point being, anyways, that Tony would have probably been more excited to the idea of spending time with Strange if only it wasn’t for the burning pain in his side which didn’t seem to want to go away. He just nodded to Stephen’s question and hoped for Friday to speed up the elevator a bit so that he could reach the penthouse and be finally alone with his pain. He wasn’t good at the sharing thing, and he knew that he would eventually feel better, it wasn’t even a huge wound, just a bit of burning skin, some lotion would have done for the time being and in the morning the pain would have been just a dream. That seemed a wonderful plan. 

“Yeah, in my penthouse, to chill in the Jacuzzi while I try to crack the code of your magic, Doc,” he answered and, for some miracle, called force of habit, nobody would have said, from his voice, how much in pain Tony was. Stephen smirked and well, Tony has seen a lot of beautiful men and women in his life, but seeing Stephen smile, even if it was the little smile which was on his lips at that moment, was one of the best sights he ever had his eyes on. 

If only. If only Tony would have known Strange might even marginally be interested in the matter, to say one thing holding back from confessing the wizard that much. If only he wasn't half sure Strange was either in a relationship with Christine Palmer or had a giant crush on Natasha (both indicating that nope, he wasn’t into men) if only Tony didn’t give a shit about the man’s friendship. He didn’t want to ruin everything. It wasn’t like he liked the man in that sense, but mostly that he was Tony Stark and he liked beautiful things and Stephen was a beautiful thing. Ok, maybe it was the pain speaking, thinking, whatever. 

When the elevator reached their floor, Tony sprinted inside, starting to push like a madman against the upper floor button. But, again, Strange was right by his side and he had all the time to enter the doors before closing them with his magic in front of an approaching Thor. “What are you running from?” 

So, the wizard noticed, of course, he did. He always noticed everything, especially when Tony was feeling down. “Nothing, just I can’t stand stupidity for more than ten minutes.”

“You seem to be pretty fine with yourself,” Strange quipped back and Tony wanted to punch him on his perfect face just to see if those cheekbones were so sharp as they seemed. He didn’t, but only because to punch him he had to extend his arm and that would have been painful. He didn’t pout either, because he was a grown-up man and grown-up men don’t pout when they can’t do or have what they want. But grown-up wizards should know when to stop asking questions that don’t want to be answered. “Are you ok?”

“Peachy,” He answered and, now, his voice sounded off even to Tony’s ears. He moved back as if to make more space between them and the movement alone was enough for him to whimper softly. Standing stretched his middle more than staying seated, and that made every movement even more painful than the previous. But no, he wasn’t going to admit it in front of the doctor. He was standing and breathing and that meant that it was nothing too severe. He could live with that, everything would have been forgotten in the morning. 

There was no need to worry the others or to tell that much to an actual doctor. It didn’t matter how friendly he could be with Strange, medicine and magics were big nopes in his list and he wasn’t going to trust completely someone who could do both. So he tried to put on his lips an enthusiastic smile and leaned subtly against the wall of the elevator focusing his dark eyes on the blue numbers which were running in front of his eyes. Yes, maybe they were blurrier than the usual, but it wasn’t like he ever paid attention to those before. Or, at least, that was what he thought before he could feel a shaking hand on his back. 

Well, he didn’t see that coming at all, it was pleasant, even if Tony had no idea where it came from. Maybe he was wrong, at the end of the day, maybe his interest toward Strange was mutual. Well, that’d been funny and interesting. A little bit out of the blue, but Tony wasn’t the one to complain about temps. If only he could pay attention to what Strange was saying. That would have been great. 

\--

Stephen had no idea what was going on. Yes, Tony seemed to act weird for the entire duration of the debriefing, uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal, someone would have said, but everyone and their mothers knew how much the billionaire hated that kind of meetings. No, that wasn’t what had the Sorcerer Supreme on alert. It was how he seemed unfocused. 

Strange spent enough time with Tony to know that the man tended to zone in and out every conversation, it wasn't his fault, his brain was faster than everyone else’s and when an idea crossed his mind he had to follow its lead, but that day had been different. It wasn’t his usual zoning out.  
His eyes well dull, the way he bit into the soft flesh of his lips was almost painful and Stephen could tell that much just looking at him. He wasn’t thinking about something different, he was keeping his thoughts away from something else. And Strange would have given all the twenty dollars he still had at his name to understand what it was. 

That was the reason why he told Wong to go alone to the Sanctum and followed the billionaire out of the conference room where the Avengers’ meetings were held. And that was the reason why he couldn’t help but ask the man if he was ok. He half expected the lie which came after, but he knew the man well enough not to push for the truth. Tony Stark went through hell and back and he deserved his privacy. So he nodded and pretended not to notice anything.

Until not noticing anything was made impossible by Tony collapsing on the elevator floor. If Stephen had to be honest with himself, it wasn’t the first time that happened, but the others were different and Tony just pretended to let himself fall flat on his back or stomach, usually complaining about Peter’s recklessness that got him stuck in some trouble. That falling against the floor, though, was completely different also because Stark’s complexion toned down of some different shade and his eyes shut off just to be violently opened a moment later. 

He crouched down, trying to obtain any reaction out of the other man who didn’t even seem to realize to be on the floor and no longer standing. One of his hands went behind the billionaire’s back as if he was trying to have the man into a more standing position. It took him a couple of tries before he understood that, despite his eyes were open, Tony didn’t seem to be at all conscious to the situation in front of him so the doctor decided to turn to look at the ceiling of the elevator cabin and to focus his attention on Friday: “What’s wrong with him?”

He had no idea if she was authorized to speak with him, but Stephen knew that one of the first AI’s aims was to be sure that her boss was okay, and the last thing Tony seemed to be at the moment was okay. “Boss has been injured during the fight, Doctor.”

Stephen looked up as if he wanted to rip a hole in the wall from the place where Friday's voice came from. Of course, he wasn’t angry at the AI, it wasn’t her fault if Stark would have never asked for medical help, didn’t matter what. He lived in the wrong belief that everyone deserved attention that he refused to accept for himself. His mind immediately shifted to self-driving at his doctor self mode and then asked: “Where is he injured?” 

“His right side, he got hit by a spell while fighting against the magic-user.” Stephen nodded and then stilled for a moment. He knew what he should do, the point was that he didn’t know if it was the wiser thing to do. Knowing Tony as he did after the final battle against Thanos brought Stephen to be well aware of every of Tony’s boundaries. He knew that he hated the sight of his chest and could barely bear the idea of someone else getting even a rapid glance of his skin. Stephen couldn’t do that much to his friend, couldn’t overstep that much the boundaries he set. But he couldn’t let the man pass out without giving him any assistance either. 

“Friday? How do I free him from the undersuit?” He asked, his steel-blue eyes wandered on the screen inside of the elevator cabin. If they reached the penthouse floor he could drag Stark inside of his house and try to examine his wound. 

“There’s a zipper on his back, but I’m positive the fabric rubbing against his skin could hurt him worse,” The voice answered, and, of course, things couldn’t be that easy. “I’d suggest you cut through it.”

Stephen nodded, trying not to think about how final that seemed to be. Strange knew what it meant having scars someone was embarrassed about. His own hands were the living proof of that much, and he didn’t want to do something that would have pushed Tony away from him. Forcing his own decisions on the other man wasn’t something he was keen to do, but he also knew he didn’t have any choice. 

Strange moved his hand, exposing just a few centimetres where Friday alerted him the burning was. And staring at absolutely nothing. Nothing but sun-kissed toned skin. He could see the perfect shape of Stark’s abs and the line of his boxers. He knew he couldn’t think about Tony’s boxers right now. 

“Friday?” He asked, trying to find a way to understand what was going on. If the computer told him Tony was injured on the side, he trusted her. 

“All I can detect is that boss is in pain and that the origin of it it’s coming from his side.”

Stephen nodded, the AI’s explanation didn’t make it any clear but if he said it was something with magic, then, maybe, magic was the way to understand what was wrong with the other man.  
He closed his eyes and let a hand touch the skin trying to be as careful as he could. It was warm, under his shakingly touch, but only when he let his magic inspect the other’s body he could feel the little fire trapped beneath. 

“He’s on fire,” He whispered as if he was waiting for some help from the AI who promptly stopped the cabin and opened the doors to a dark room. 

“This is not an Avengers’ floor, but after the last New Year’s Eve, even the party dock has its infirmary,” Friday said, and while Stephen wasn’t in the mood in asking that question, he hoped he would remember to do it as soon as Tony was conscious.  
That wasn’t the time, and it sounded more like a story he wanted to hear from Tony’s mouth instead of his AI’s mechanical voice. 

“Thank you,” He said, instead, while Friday turned on the lights in a distant hallway and, a moment later, Stephen was able to see the reflection of the ones light up in a distant room at the end of it as to indicate to the doctor where he should go. 

Despite its final destination, the party dock floor looked just as technological as everything else in the Tower. The lift door opened in a huge room with walls made almost completely of glass and steel with black leather sofas all around it. The hallway which led to the infirmary ran parallel to one of the glass walls to the opposite side of the room and it seemed like it came out from some futuristic movie with its white and bright neon lights in the middle of the otherwise pitch-black room only lit by the light of a New York which was way down below of them. It was amazing, and it somehow reminded Stephen of his old penthouse. Shaking his head, he turned back to look at Tony and then addressed the Cloak for it to help him. He wasn’t sure his hands could hold Stark’s weight but was pretty positive they couldn’t. 

The Cloak didn’t appear pleased at all, but Stephen was used to its shenanigans and just scoffed at it. The point was, it didn’t matter how much he pretended Tony was his friend, he couldn’t deny - at least not to the Cloak, he tried - the feelings he felt for the man. Of course, Stephen wasn’t helping him because of that, he might have become useless to the job, but he still was a doctor, he still made a vow and he was intentioned to respect it. (Which was the reason why he opposed Natasha and Rhodey’s idea when they asked him to kill Thanos instead of trapping him.) So, yeah, he wasn’t helping Tony because he had a crush on him, but, yeah, he had a crush on him. And it took long enough to him to admit that much to his most trusted friend, and Christine. Because, somehow, the Cloak and the doctor teamed up. And neither of them trusted Tony. if only the situation wasn’t so precarious, it would have been extremely fun to watch the Cloak trying to give Tony the talk ™. Not that Stephen dared to hope so much, but still. 

At the moment, the only thing he could do was to reach the infirmary. The place seemed to be out of the most advanced hospital, but it wasn’t like Stephen was expecting for something different, he saw the med bay in the Avengers Compound recently implemented with Wakandan technology and Dr Cho’s most recent crawls. What surprised him, though, was that the medical equipment in a room supposed to be used for drunk people was pretty much the same. Stephen, once again, wished to know the story behind the infirmary on the party dock. But not now. 

“Friday?” He called, once the Cloak placed Tony on one of the beds. “Can you scan him? Look for every possible internal damage.”

“On it, doctor,” The voice, this time, came from somewhere near what seemed to be a wall completely made of steel in the further corner of the room. A moment later, the entire wall lit up in a blue-ish light from which appeared a holographic image of Stark’s body. Stephen looked over the scan. He couldn’t see anything wrong in the picture, but for some already forming scar tissue under the now exposed skin on Tony’s chest. It was weird, whatever was going on inside of the billionaire’s body seemed to be too fast and while he knew it was because of magic, it was also something Stephen had never seen before. 

And when he couldn’t intervene from a medical point of view, he knew he should look into a possibly magical cause. The fact that they fought against a magic user well, it helped. So Stephen let his hand run once again against Tony’s skin until he found the origin of that burning he felt before. It was a small sphere of energy, something of which the Sorcerer Supreme couldn’t detect the final aim or its use, but it was clear that it was burning Tony’s tissues from the inside. He had to act fast, but not too fast to procure him a shock. 

An overconfident smile crept through his lips. It was like when he was at the hospital; the same idea of being the only one who could do something that would have ended in him saving a life. A part of him knew that his behaviour had been what dragged him down the way to his downfall, but he was also well conscious of his limits and abilities. He might hate the person he had been in the past, but he never forgot what he was capable of. He just needed to know what humility was. And the fact that he learnt it in the worst way possible was just a proof of how much Stephen Strange could be self-confident. But he’d known how not to make the same mistakes over and over again since he lost his hands and he intended to do everything in his power to save Tony Stark. 

He tried to recall in his mind every healing spell he knew. It was easy, for him, those were between the first he learnt and they rapidly started to flow into his mind while Stephen focused his energy on the small fire and enveloped it into a force field, before starting to pull it out slowly.  
His eyes kept going from the body laid on the bed and the scan which was now showing the exact extent of Tony’s wound. 

Just once he managed to take the ball of energy completely out from Tony’s chest he opened a portal and sent it to the Sanctum. He knew he needed to examine it further, trying to understand what happened or which was the origin of it, but at that moment all he cared about was to be sure that Stark was okay. 

\--

Tony opened his eyes to a room that he just vaguely recognized. He knew he had been there before, but couldn’t tell exactly where “there” was. He opened slowly his eyes, trying to take in as many things as he could. He knew he was still in the Tower but the last thing he remembered was wanting to reach his penthouse and pass out on the bed because of the pain… 

That was what surprised him the most. He was half sure that he passed out but couldn’t remember when he walked out the lift or everything but being in the cabin with Strange. That thought shook him over, while he fretted to get into a seated position and the fast movement went immediately to his head, making the entire room where he was turning around him, immediately noticing the red flying carpet that he knew far too well. If the Cloak of Levitation was there, so was Strange. Since after the final battle, every time he met with the man he was sure he could call a friend, the red piece of fabric was always with the Sorcerer, it didn’t matter which clothes Stephen was wearing. The casual attire with the cape was one of Tony’s favourites up to date, but he wasn’t going to admit to the Sorcerer that he rated his outfit. 

“I wouldn’t do that,” Strange’s deep voice caught him by surprise, and all Tony could do was to turn from the origin of the voice and to meet the man’s face. He was smirking in that absolutely illegal way that won Tony’s heart over and over again so, not to make a fool of himself, the man just brought a hand to his temple and tried to focus on the now and then. 

“What happened?” He asked, dreading the possible answer which didn’t take long to come.

“You passed out in the elevator,” He said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling as if he was waiting for a potest to come from Stark. A protest that Tony was well aware was borning on his lips. “Whoever attacked us together hit you with something that was burning you from the inside. I’m sure it was painful.” 

“Went through worse,” He answered, instead, smirking to the other man. He could imagine which reaction was going to have from Stephen himself, but he also knew Stark was right. 

“Yeah, you told me,” There was just a hint of irony in Stephen’s voice, it was the same amount at which Tony was used when Stephen was exasperated, usually by either some new apprentice or Peter. And yes, maybe Tony knew Stephen a little too well if he could detect that minimum change in his voice, but it wasn’t a bad thing, was it? “But you don’t have to hide it just because you went through worse.”

“As if you’ve never done it, Doc,” He swung his legs down from the bed but didn’t lower his eyes from the doctor’s face. 

“I am a doctor, I know what I can take before passing out from the pain,” Another smirk. It was infuriating how content Stephen seemed to be in that situation, and yet how Tony wanted to do nothing more than mash their lips together so that the Sorcerer would have had something to smirk at. It was stupid, childish, and he knew that he wasn’t even near to be in the right mindset to have a relationship, but he couldn’t deny being attracted by the wizard. “And I wouldn’t mind being helped if help is what I need.”

“It was nothing,” Tony tried to defend himself. 

“It was something burning your skin from the inside, you could have died,” Tony raised an eyebrow to the explanation. Ok, he didn’t think about that eventuality, but still. 

“Thank you, I guess, then,” Was everything he was able to say. Stephen nodded ano moved toward the Cloak. 

“You’ll receive my parcel soon,” It was a joke between them, and Tony just shook his head before a thought crossed his mind. 

“Maybe you could start to work for me,” He was joking, and a part of him knew Stephen was aware of that, but another part, well, that part was already trying to find a way to involve Strange in his next project. 

“You can’t afford me,” Was everything Strange said, instead, opening the door of the infirmary room and waiting for Tony to precede him outside. Tony laughed at that, but a little something inside his heart fell even deeper for the other man.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, kudos and comments are appreciated!
> 
>  **wanna say hi?** come on tumblr [@myrxellabaratheon](http://myrxellabaratheon.tumblr.com/) and [@ironstrange-is-the-endgame](http://ironstrange-is-the-endgame.tumblr.com/)  
>  **do you want a fic written by me?** Click on my Ironstrange Tumblr and follow the instruction in the pinned post.


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